Roughly 200 foreign students and AFL-CIO union members have gathered to protest The Hershey Co.'s policies on foreign workers. The protesters first stood outside one of The Hershey Co.'s main distribution facilities in Palmyra, then moved to the Chocolate Workers Union downtown.

The students, who are working in the United States through the J1 Visa program, are asking the company to review its policies for foreign workers.

View full sizeJOHN C. WHITEHEAD, The Patriot-NewsAFL-CIO union members protest outside one of The Hershey Co.'s main distribution facilities in Palmyra.

The warehouse is operated by Exel, an Ohio-based logistical firm that provides services for businesses in the Harrisburg area.

The foreign workers are primarily college students who signed up — and paid for — a three-month cultural exchange program. The program is designed to bring them to the United States, where they will work in and around Americans.

Instead, the students contend they are working in Exel warehouses among other foreign workers with little or no contact with Americans.

Stephen Boykewich is a spokesman for the National Guestworker Alliance, which helped the students organize the protest.

“The joke is the cultural exchange is between the Turks and the Moldovians,” he said.

Guestworkers at the facility are paid between $7.85 and $8.35 an hour.

They said their demands are that The Hershey Co. repay them for the cost of their trip and end the practice of hiring students through the J1 Visa program.

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